


A World With Less Noise

by rixinaugust



Series: Noise, Quiet, Silence [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Asexual Neville Longbottom, Demigod Luna Lovegood, Everyone Needs A Hug, Friendship is important but I ain’t tagging all that, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Multi, Not Beta Read, Post-Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Post-Tartarus (Percy Jackson), Post-The Heroes of Olympus, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Trans Character, bisexual everyone else, but only canonical, but only mentioned, don’t know who yet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-24
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:55:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27695186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rixinaugust/pseuds/rixinaugust
Summary: The wars are finished, but that doesn’t mean the damage is gone.Luna Lovegood and Minerva McGonagall have been keeping secrets, and it’s almost time to come clean. Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase are struggling even more than everyone expected, not that anyone had solid expectations for how they would be.Harry Potter doesn’t know what he wants anymore. Hermione Granger wants more than the world can give to her. Neville Longbottom wants to figure out who he really is. Ron and Ginny Weasley want to get on with the rest of their lives. But the world is changing, and the nine of them find themselves at the center.
Relationships: Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson, Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Luna Lovegood/Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley
Series: Noise, Quiet, Silence [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2025443
Comments: 16
Kudos: 55





	1. Trauma, Hope, and Weird Ideas

**Author's Note:**

> There is some swearing in this fic. Violence and character death are mentioned, but not described. 
> 
> Let me know about any glaring errors, please :)   
> This is my first posted fic, although I’ve written some before. I have four chapters(and maybe a one-shot) planned, but if y’all like it, I may write more. I am open to suggestions of one-shots or short follow-on fics, although I can’t promise that I’ll write it.

Luna stared up at the rubble of the castle she had once called home. It was over. She wouldn’t have to fight anymore. She could breathe. 

Except… that wasn’t true. The main structure of the school might have been strong enough to hold up the weight of the people inside, but several walls had been reduced to rubble. Some of the walls had been supporting other walls, so those had begun to crumble as well. She knew that there was a lot of work to be done. She wouldn’t have to fight for her life against the majority of a maniacal racist wizarding organization that had overthrown the government under the rule of an insane man, but there were still supporters out there that wouldn’t regret going out with a bang. That’s not to mention the others that would probably be out to kill her. 

So she prayed. 

A prayer to a mother that her friends in the Wizarding World didn’t know she had. A distressed whisper in the evening light, mirrored in past whispered prayers - prayers that had carried her through the past two years, even though there had never been an answer.

This time felt no different, so she let the wind carry her prayer away and let her thoughts drift to her American family. A family she had been forced to leave behind when she became involved in the war in England. 

“Luna.” 

“Mom?” 

Athena smiled down at her daughter, a close-lipped, smile that spoke more of desperation than pride. Luna’s heart raced. “You asked for help.” 

A quick nod. A searching look. Calculation. 

“I cannot help you.” Simple. To the point. 

Luna looked up at her mother, a daring spark of hope in her eyes. “You wouldn’t come if you couldn’t.”

Athena gave her a long look, then exhaled, looking around at the ruins of the castle to their side. “There was another war after you left. It was not easy. My daughter took the brunt of it, along with the spawn of Poseidon.” 

“Annabeth.” It wasn’t a question. Luna only knew one pair that included a child of Poseidon and a daughter of Athena that would take the brunt of a war. 

“She may be willing to help you, for the price of relative safety.” Athena leaned herself against one of the more stable sections of wall still standing. “Our world is no longer a suitable place for them.” 

Luna looked away, fighting with the idea of her strongest sister breaking down, and what would cause that. When she looked back, Athena was gone.

* * *

Percy and Annabeth were changed by the pit, there were no two ways around it. They had been okay, at least in the eyes of everyone else, at first. Before the war had finished. Sure, they didn’t leave each other’s side much, and they didn’t talk as much as they used to, but they were there. They joked with the rest of the seven, fought with the rest of the seven, and had a glimmer in their eyes. 

Then the war finished. And they disappeared. 

Jason knew that they all, to some degree, were reeling with the pain they had ignored, but the extent at which the two older demigods disappeared into themselves and their memories was shocking. It was as if he turned around one day to tell Percy a joke that only they would find funny, and he was gone. Left in his place was a shell attached to Annabeth like his life depended on it. And she was just as bad. 

Now that he thought about it, Jason hadn’t heard either of them speak a word since the Argo II had landed at Camp Half-Blood. They had been the last ones to come out of the base of the ship, and the cheers had been loudest for them. That’s when he first saw the true fear in their eyes.

After two months of being home, Jason braved entering the Poseidon cabin. He knocked on the door as softly as he could, and called out gently who he was. Then he waited. 

He knew they were inside; he had checked the beach before heading to the cabin. The son of Poseidon hadn’t used his water powers noticeably for weeks. And if he did, it likely wouldn’t have been as big as to disappear underwater. Although, disappearing had been the pair’s favorite pastime during those weeks. Jason wasn’t sure if he should think about the water, but it wasn’t as if he could check that they weren’t in the middle of the lake, so he supposed this was in line. 

He thought all this while he waited. 

The door did, though, eventually open very slowly, with a cautious Annabeth peering out. Seeing that it was indeed him, she ushered him in quickly and closed the door behind him. They stand silently, waiting for Jason to begin what he wanted to say. He didn’t start immediately, instead taking in the area around him. He’s seen the cabin before, but not like this. There are papers spread out all over the floor, diagrams and equations: pages and pages of notes. He can’t tell what they are, and he really should get to talking before they think he’s being too suspicious. But he can’t help but think about the way that they’ve obviously spent hours upon hours working on whatever project this is. 

It was an Iris message one morning that really began to turn things around. The seven were having breakfast before the rest of the camp woke up in order to get some time by themselves. If they were honest, none of them could sleep anyways. They sat around one table, the Poseidon table. 

The image of one of Annabeth’s siblings materialized in front of them. She grinned, a big loopy smile that made the corners of Jason’s mouth twitch upwards. 

“Annabeth!” she looked around hurriedly, scanning the room for other people before lowering her voice. “I don’t have much time, and from the looks of it, you don’t either, but…” she frowned suddenly. 

“Hey Luna.” Piper grinned at Jason. This was the first time that they had heard Annabeth(or Percy, for that matter) say something unnecessarily in weeks, even if it was just a simple “hey.” 

Percy made a motion at the rest of the seven to leave. “Tell us later,” Hazel told him before leading the others out of earshot from the Iris message. 

They talked for maybe a minute, and Jason could have sworn Percy smiled. Only for a split second, and just a little bit, but Jason was willing to take this as hope. Frank locked eyes with him and grinned. So he probably didn’t imagine it. What he didn’t know was just how much this was going to change in how they all imagined recovery would go for the pair. It would be better in most ways, and a whole lot worse in others. But life was just like that, and Jason would come to terms with it sooner rather than later. 

* * *

Luna let herself cry. The wind blew them across her face, and she slumped to the ground, her back pressed against what remained of a stone wall. She fiddled with some stones, trying to cover a red stain on a fallen section of wall to her left side. Her mind wandered to her sister, away from the casualties of the war she had just pushed through. The war they had fought in must have been much different, and if Luna thought hard enough about it, much more difficult. She wondered what had happened that would make Annabeth break in the way that Athena had hinted at, wondered what kind of horrors her sister had been forced through. She wondered how many siblings she had left. 

“Luna?” A familiar voice cut through the thoughts of her American family. 

“Harry.” 

“I was wondering where you were.” 

“Here.” Luna wasn’t quite sure she was ready to face the wizarding world again, but she forced herself to pat the cleanest area of stone beside her in an offer for him to sit. 

“You’re crying.” He took her suggestion and slid down to meet her on the ground, flicking away small pieces of rubble from under him. 

She shrugged, staring off into the distance. “War is worth crying over.” 

“This is surreal,” he said after a moment. 

She thought about how it always is, but didn’t say that. Instead, she put her hand on his knee. “We’ll be okay eventually.” 

“Do you want to go back inside?” Harry broke the silence as the sun slipped fully behind the horizon in front of them. 

“Is there an inside anymore?” 

He shook his head. “No, not really. But there are people who we love, and that’s enough, isn’t it?” 

She smiled a little. “Go ahead. I’ll be there in a minute.” 

Not sure when she would get another moment alone, she headed towards the Black Lake. She took out a coin and called for her sister. 

The image showed Annabeth on the beach, her arms wrapped around Percy Jackson, her boyfriend. The two of them looked nothing if not desperate, and Luna understood what Athena had hinted at. She’d never seen Annabeth look quite so weak. “Luna?” 

“Annabeth, I-” Luna paused, not sure how or what she should say. “I have a plan and I-” her heart was pounding harder than she could remember it ever doing before. “I’ll talk to you later.” She swiped through the image and it disappeared. 

Unsure of what to do next, she turned and headed back towards the broken castle, stepping over discarded wands and rocks that had been a part of the walls for decades. She didn’t want to face the differences between her two worlds right now, but she had no choice. Her friends wanted her, and she needed to stay in the world she had fought to keep. 

They slept among the dead that night: Harry, Ron, Hermione, Neville, Ginny, and Luna all lay in one big pile. There wasn’t much space elsewhere. A lot of people stayed the night that first night, unable to feel safe at home in their own beds, or without their homes or their beds. 

Luna didn’t sleep one bit, and she suspected neither did anyone else. They were tired, tired as hell, but that wasn’t enough. So much had happened so quickly. 

She was reminded of her first war. She spent her summers before that at camp, and her years at Hogwarts. It wasn’t as if she didn’t know that something was coming. It wasn’t as if she didn’t know that death was as much a part of her life as life itself was. She was smart, albeit young. But the aftermath shocked her; the rubble and the pain, the way no one seemed to escape unscathed. She saw people she admired deeply be hurt as if they were every other person. She saw people she at one time wished she could be fall before her eyes. She saw more people die that night than she could count on having as friends. 

And yet it was a matter of days later when she got on a plane to head home, and then back to Hogwarts only a week or two later, her mind still reeling from everything that had happened. 

It all happened much more quickly than she could have ever imagined. It was years worth of worry and fighting- over just like that. In a matter of hours the battle went from full scale to nothing, and in a matter of days she was being returned to another world. The wizarding world felt so quiet after that, something she felt again now. But instead of just her reeling from the speed at which life changed, it was her entire world. 

She had a feeling it was both of her worlds. 

She hadn’t returned to camp recently: too stuck in the wizarding world. She hadn’t meant to get caught up in fighting for them, but she knew it was what she needed to do. Not to mention that she had true friends, friends that saw her as equals and not just another camper from cabin 6. But Athena had mentioned something about another war in that world. 

“D’ya think they’ll have breakfast?” Ron’s voice cut through her thoughts. There was a new day at hand, one with a to do list longer than the plane flight back to her first home. 

* * *

After the initial excitement of his return, and Leo got a moment with the seven, he immediately noticed the absence of Percy and Annabeth.

“Leo…” Jason started, seeing his searching eyes.

His voice shook, “Did…”

“No.” With Jason’s voice laced with shadow, Leo took a deep breath, trying to prepare himself for anything. “But they aren’t the same.” 

“I’m going to go see them.” Leo turned on his heel, headed off to the center of camp, pretending he knew where he was going. 

“No.” Jason stopped him. 

“Not right now, Leo.” Piper smiled at him with pity in her eyes. 

He frowned, but let his friends lead him and Calypso to the big house. “They were fine, or at least normal enough before…” 

“It’s normal really,” Hazel tells Leo in the big house, “it’s a delayed trauma response, or something similar. It happens in a lot of situations with people experiencing post traumatic stress disorder.” 

“You sound like Annabeth.” 

“Malcom was talking to me about it on one of the worse days.” She looked down, absentmindedly tracing a scar along her right hand that Leo hasn’t remembered her having before. He decided not to ask. 

Eventually, Leo was alone by the water, just trying to come to terms with the new information he had been handed in regards to the end of the war. Piper had gone off to tell Percy and Annabeth of his return, and he anxiously awaited their response, although he had been told that it could be close to nothing. A blank stare, if you will. But really, it could be anything. 

Around others, he liked to joke around, but war had changed them all, and he needed some time to think. He found himself fiddling with a piece of metal, melting it and molding it with his hands subconsciously. 

War was a strange thing. It destroyed everything and promised everything too, and he didn’t know what to make of it. 

“Leo?” 

He jumped up, quickly hiding the metal figure. Percy’s voice was raspy, as if from disuse. His arm was wrapped around a slumping Annabeth, who fiddled with a coin. To put it frankly, they both looked terrible. Not physically, no, other than the bags under their eyes and the always-present scars, they were physically alright. No, it was the way they held themselves. 

During the time he had known Annabeth Chase, she had slumped maybe twice, but always quickly corrected her posture. Now, she sunk into Percy, as if wanting him to become a part of her. Percy wasn’t much better, his eyes aimed at the ground instead of Leo. He didn’t mind for his own sake, but for theirs he wished they would pick themselves up off the ground, stand tall again. 

“Percy. Annabeth.” He grinned at them, something they didn’t return. 

“Mind if we join you?” 

“Join the McShizzle? I think you’ll need special permission for that honor.” He brushed a curl from his face. “Nah, of course you can join me. It’s not my beach or anything.” 

A faint smile crossed Percy’s face, and Leo felt relief flowing through his body. 

“So?” He can’t stop himself from asking, although he knew he shouldn’t break the silence between the three demigods: two who made it through hell and one who just came back from the dead. 

“You died.” Annabeth sounded matter-of-fact, but there was something different about her voice. It’s softer, maybe, more distant. It reminded Leo the way a cloud looks, soft, dramatic, and obscuring something else. 

“I came back.” 

“Leo…” Percy spoke slowly. 

“We’ve all changed.” Leo interjected.

Annabeth nodded. “You wouldn’t take it personally… if we went somewhere else for a while, would you?” 

He hoped the two didn't expect a real answer right away, because he felt tears welling up in his eyes. He shook his head, either in an attempt to reassure Percy and Annabeth that he doesn’t mind or an attempt to banish the tears. He didn’t know why this was making him cry, and it made him feel a bit… small compared to the two demigods sitting beside him, eyes dry despite everything they’ve gone through. It didn’t matter, really, he supposed, but that didn’t mean he likes it.

“Leo.” Percy said his name again, like a mantra to convince the older boy that he’s really alive. “I understand if you- if you want us to stay, but…” 

Annabeth wrapped her free arm around Leo’s shoulders, pulling him closer to them. He wondered if the others of the seven have had similar conversations with them, similar contact. “We- it’s hard to stay here, with everything. And we have an offer or a new place to go.” 

“I want the best for you two.” He shook his head again, dispelling his tears. “I’m-I’m not sure why I’m upset. 

They sat in silence for a few moments, Percy’s feet kicking small waves out from where they were sitting. 

“You’re not offering for me to go with you, are you?” Leo looked up at the demigods who are practically family at this point with a wild grin on his face. It’s a Leo grin, which they appreciated, but the effect is dampened by the tears sat on his face. 

“Sorry, no.”

“We need a… different world for a while, just to… y’know.” 

Leo nodded reluctantly, and the conversation was over.

* * *

“Milady?”   
Professor McGonagall’s familiar voice wasn’t loud, but loud enough for Harry to overhear her. He looked around, but couldn’t see her. The occasional person bustled by, levitating a stack of stones; rebuilding the school around them. Giving a soft sigh, he wondered if that was for the best. He turned his attention back to the conversation she was having. 

“Yes, and I can make sure of it myself.” 

Someone dropped a stack of rocks. Harry jumped up from where he was sat on the floor of the ground floor hallway. His sandwich, all but forgotten by now, hung loosely to his side. 

“Would you really? Just like that?” Harry had never heard the stern professor this excited before, but it quickly trailed off. “I mean… We’d be happy to have them, I just… I don’t want to be disrespectful. If you’re sure… we can get things ready to begin on your timeline.” 

“Would you have the room ready by Monday? I can take them until the blocks settle, but I think we’d all like to get this done as soon as possible.” Harry had to strain to hear the response. 

“I don’t think-I’ll ask the Weasley’s…” 

“So that’s where you went, Harry!” Hermione interrupted McGonagall’s conversation with the mysterious person. 

He didn’t have the heart to tell her about his eavesdropping, so he allowed her to lead him back into the fray of rebuilding. But his mind was stuck on that conversation, back in the hallway. Who was the lady McGonagall spoke to? Why was she referred to as milady by the professor? 

* * *

There were maybe two days left before the camps would be finished with their reconstruction, and the seven would all have to make a decision of where to spend the majority of their time. Transportation between the two camps had been made extremely easy for the past two months to aid with reconstruction, but Chiron had told them that it was too dangerous to keep the portal open as they returned to normal life. Sure, transportation would stay easier, but the portal wasn’t going to be open, and certainly not for daily use. Jason still didn’t know what he was going to choose. 

“What are you guys thinking about the decision that we’ll be making soon?” Piper sighed, and the others grimaced. They were all having a difficult time making their decisions, and Piper said what was on everyone’s mind. 

“I’ll just stay here. Forever.” Leo huffed, wrapping his arm around Calypso and patting the table lovingly. 

“No, but really…” Piper looked down. “I just want to stay with people; I’m not sure if it matters which camp I stay in. Or… I could try to live in the mortal world.” 

Jason pulled her closer to him. “I feel like I should go back to New Rome, but I don’t want to leave anyone behind, and if that means staying on the Greek side, I will.” 

Hazel and Frank looked at each other. “We’ll end up in New Rome eventually I’m sure, but for now I don’t know.” 

They all looked towards Percy and Annabeth, who smiled sadly at the table. “There’s something we have to tell you.” Annabeth said cautiously. 

There was silence. Jason braced himself against his chair, trying to quell the emotions that threatened to spill to the surface. He couldn’t bear to hear bad news now, but he knew that he would have to be strong for the two demigods in front of him who had been to hell and back. Even Leo stopped fiddling with the metal pieces in his hands and took a deep breath. 

Percy twisted a piece of Annabeth’s hair around his finger, “Annabeth and I were offered jobs in Scotland.”

Silence. 

“We leave tomorrow.” 

“Why the fuck would you do that? It’s not like there are six of us here, wanting to stick together or anything! It’s fine, just go off and go to fucking Scotland.” Jason stormed out of the Argo II kitchen, slamming the door behind him. The swearing from the normally composed leader unsettled them, but it made sense. Jason was scared of being left behind or forgetting anyone. Everyone was, but Percy knew they needed this. So did Annabeth. They wouldn’t be helping anyone to stay here, even in the mortal world wouldn’t be far enough away from the stresses that they’d grown to fear.

“It’s… We…” 

Piper looked like she wanted to scream. Her fists balled up, tears welled up in her eyes, and she kicked the leg of the table. Hazel hid behind Frank, who brushed her hair out of her face. Calypso gave Percy and Annabeth a sympathetic smile, despite everything. 

“I understand.” Piper turned to look at the former Titaness. Her voice shook with the attention she had gathered, but she continued, “The memories here are too strong for you to handle and still be the people you want to be.” 

* * *

Due to the sheer number of witches and wizards helping with the reconstruction of Hogwarts, Harry, and Hermione were staying at the Burrow with the rest of the Weasleys; they would floo home every night from Hogsmede, and return in the morning. If he was honest, Harry was glad about this. He wasn’t entirely sure he could sleep inside the castle any time soon, the same place where he engaged in battle. He wasn’t even sure he wanted to go back next year. 

There was the offer, of course, for every year to redo the past one. Hermione had jumped on the opportunity almost immediately. Ron hadn’t decided yet, and neither had he. He wanted to graduate, yes, and he was willing to do the normal amount of work for it, but he wasn’t sure how he would handle being in the castle all the time. He wasn’t sure he would be able to fend off the nightmares or the memories. He wasn’t sure he could return to classes and be a sane person. 

Everyone expected the boy-who-lived to be strong, and he was. Most of the time. He was as strong as he could be around other people. He’d never been one for the fame, and he liked it even less now. He didn’t want the attention. But for the most part he stayed strong. There were moments where the memories flashed through his head and he couldn’t do anything but stand there as Hermione rushed him somewhere calm where she could pull him away from the past. 

For her part, Hermione had the memories almost more than Harry. But she wasn’t in the same spotlight, and if she froze for a bit she wouldn’t be on the front page of the newspaper. The three of them had a system when it came to handling the memories. Ron wasn’t the best about helping the others through theirs in the heat of the moment, but he did a good job of bringing up the spirits afterwards, making jokes and bringing them back to normal. He bickered with both of them, but they could all tell that it didn’t have the same meaning behind it as it once would have. 

War had changed all of them. 

It had been less than a week since everyone arrived at the Burrow, and Hermione had already made her way into Ron’s room, which he shared with Harry. Ginny had been close behind her. If Mrs. Weasley noticed, she did not care. 

There was a lot of silence and cups of tea now, in the evenings when they were too exhausted to do or think of much more. None of them wanted to admit how much the rebuilding took out of them, day in and day out. To face the memories every day in such a dramatic way wore at them, and they stayed silent. 

Until the owl arrived. 

It tapped on the window. Everyone turned to stare at it, unsure of what to do at first, but Mrs. Weasley stood up from her chair shakily. Mr. Weasley shook his head, mumbling. “Who even sends owls anymore?” 

Mrs. Weasley fumbled with the latch on the window. Everyone watched in silence, the same way that they had been eating prior. But only Ron continued to bring his spoon to his mouth though hardly breaking his stare at the owl in the window. 

The owl itself was an unfamiliar one. 

“Addressed to me.” Mrs. Weasley took in a deep breath. She tore open the envelope. “McGonagall.” 

“But why…” Ginny trailed off, her voice cracking. 

“Nothing.” Mrs. Weasley replied too quickly. “Nothing bad.” 

There was a collective sigh of relief, some hiding it better than others. Mrs. Weasley pulled her husband from the room. No one else moved. 

Five minutes passed, then ten. Soon it was twenty, and George’s head was bobbing towards his chest, eyes floating closed. The others knew he likely hadn’t been sleeping much, if at all. 

The eldest Weasleys did not return. Bill leaned on Fleur’s shoulder, both of them drifting in and out of sleep as they watched the others do the same. Ginny climbed down from her chair, dozing off from a curled position on the floor. Harry made to copy her, leaning against Ron’s chair and running his fingers through her hair. Hermione reached her hand out to Ron. Bill smiled at the younger ones at one point, a faint glimmer of hope in his eyes. 


	2. Sorrow, Sisters, and Sweets

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is chapter two :) I'll be spitting chapter three into three parts, which I'll post one at a time. 
> 
> Just like last time, please feel free to let me know if there are any glaring errors.

“Percy.” Annabeth’s voice cut through the silence of the cab ride. 

He leaned over and absentmindedly kissed her on the cheek. “We’re going to be okay. It’s new, it’ll be good.”

She said nothing in return, taking his hand in her own and pulling it close. He wrapped his arms around her, and they looked out onto the English countryside as they reminded themselves that the other was there. 

“What if she doesn’t want me in this part of her life?” She frowned. 

A hand reached up and stroked her hair in response. “That’s not going to happen. She wanted you to come, remember?”

“I know.” 

“It is strange, though. How easy it was to get here. Makes me wonder how good it’ll really be. Everything good in our lives so far has come with a steep price, I don’t know how to believe that this’ll be different.” If the cab driver thought the two overly-affectionate teenagers were insane based on the weird comments they kept making, he didn’t say anything. Just drove them to their destination, or, at least, as close as he could without running into the magic barrier that he would probably never know existed. 

“Maybe it’ll be different.” Annabeth replied, but Percy could hear the doubt in her voice. She didn’t really believe it, he knew, but the only way forward was to accept what they knew and hope for the best. So he nodded and turned his head to look out the window again. 

* * *

“They should be here any minute!” Mrs. Weasley seemed to have gotten a new bounce in her step in preparing for guests. Ron groaned about it behind closed doors, but there was a sense of relief in having his mum back. 

The cleanup of Hogwarts had been put on pause for a few days. (“We’ve done as much as we can for now. Go home, or back to the dungeons, and rest. We’ll be back in a few days, but there’s no reason to overwork ourselves.” Professor McGonagall had said.) Mrs. Weasley seemed to be just as eager to put them to work in cleaning the Burrow. 

Harry had to admit, though, that cleaning the Burrow was much different from cleanup at Hogwarts. He had dreaded being in the same place for several days, not leaving, drowning in the oppressive emotions. But it was nothing like that at all. 

Of course, Mrs. Weasley’s upbeat attitude in comparison to the downtrodden, grieving mother she’d let herself be in the week prior certainly helped. Ron and Ginny grumbled, but even he could tell that they were grateful for the fragile environment disappearing. 

The Burrow was full to the brim with people, just how Mrs. Weasley - no, Molly, she insisted - liked it. George had moved back from his shop, Percy(or Ival - pronounced like Ivan - as they had shyly asked to be called one morning) attached to his every move. It was a strange duo, but they seemed to make the world tolerable for each other in some way. Harry may never understand. Bill and Charlie weren’t always there, but they were most days. Fleur stopped by occasionally with little Victoire cradled in her arms, and Molly would take the baby from her daughter-in-law as often as she could. Then Ron and Ginny, who had taken up residence in their old rooms, as if they’d never been away. Harry basically lived with Ron at this point(Molly insisted he did, and he honestly didn’t know how to argue with something that was true). Hermione stayed in Ginny’s room. (“Just until I find my parents! Then I’ll be out of your hair.” “Nonsense, Hermione, stay as long as you like.”) Luna and her father also stayed, although Harry could never figure out where Xeno slept. Luna slept with Ginny and Hermione, the three girls sharing a bond that Harry could never figure out, but that he was glad Hermione had found. 

He didn’t know how they had decided that they had room for two more, but Luna had smiled in the way that she did, and Molly had shrugged it off, so he didn’t ask again. 

* * *

“Come on in, dears, you must be tired after such a long journey.”

“Thank you... Mrs. Weasley, I assume?” Came the reply, a man’s voice. The young wizards made their way to the stairs, uncertain about meeting these new people. 

“Yes, that would be me. You must be Percy and Annabeth. Ah, and here come the kids. Let’s head to the sitting room, I’ll get you two a bite to eat once everyone is seated.”

“Annabeth!” Luna ran down the stairs, blonde hair flying behind her. She flung her arms around the other girl, who stumbled backwards. 

“Woah, Lulu, maybe calm it a bit? That’s a lot of excitement for this time of day, isn’t it?” The boy told Luna. He stood partially behind the girl (her name was... Annabeth?). His hair was messy and jet-black, similar to Harry’s. He was tall, tall enough to be seen over Luna and Annabeth, and looked relatively strong. He wore a light jacket. 

“Perce is right, Lu.” Annabeth spoke, her voice muffled slightly by Luna’s hair. It was soft, but decisive. Harry got the sense that she could be a loud and authoritative figure if she tried, but that she didn’t try much. As Luna stepped away, he saw more of her. She was a little taller than Luna, but not much. They had the same blonde hair, but hers was wrapped in a crudely made necklace, the kind made by muggle kids. She wore a turtleneck sweater and jeans, and leaned on a cane. 

Luna leaned over and pulled the boy into a hug. “When did you start using a cane, ‘Beth?” 

Annabeth winced. “Few months ago. Injury never healed properly.” Luna seemed to sense that the subject wasn’t one to press her on, so left it alone. 

“C’mon, I’ll show you two to the living room!” 

* * *

“I didn’t know you knew each other?” Molly asked, looking at Luna, Percy, and Annabeth, who were sitting on the couch. 

“I’m Luna’s half sister on our mom’s side.” Annabeth provided. 

“I didn’t know you had any half-siblings?” Hermione mirrored Molly’s question, making the whole exchange seem somewhat like an interrogation. Harry winced slightly, something that didn’t go unnoticed by Percy. The other boy shot him a small grin. 

“I’ve got a few. Annabeth’s my favorite, though. Took care of me in the summers after mum died, up until this past year.” 

Annabeth scowled at something, and Percy put a hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay, ‘Beth. We’re here now.” He whispered. 

“When did you two figure out you were staying here? I thought I’d just see you back at Hogwarts.” Luna asked over dinner that night. 

Percy laughed. “We’re just along for the ride. Reyna’s sister figured everything out for us. She sent us the address, although Lou Ellen had to show us how to get here.” 

“Lou is the professor’s kid? I don’t know Reyna.”

“Oh, I suppose you wouldn’t. Yes, Lou is the professor’s daughter. Reyna’s sister’s name is Minerva, if that helps.” Annabeth clarified. 

“Minerva… Minerva… Minerva…” Luna gasped. “You would by any chance mean Minerva McGonagall, would you?” 

“That’s the name! Yes, she’s Reyna’s sister. I’ll have to tell you about Reyna and Jason later…” Annabeth trailed off. 

“Professor McGonagall has a sister?” Hermione asked. “I suppose it wouldn’t be important information, but it’s still surprising. She doesn’t strike me as the type to be referred to as someone’s sister.”

“She has two younger half-sisters, Reyna and Hylla. Both are the scariest lesbians I’ve ever met.” Percy added. 

“Seaweed brain! How can they both be the scariest lesbian? That kind of defeats the purpose of rating scary lesbians, you know.” 

* * *

Then the night came. It found Percy and Annabeth alone by the shore of the nearby pond, the stars in the sky glittering above them. Annabeth drew in a long breath, and together they let the day settle around them. 

The day had treated them well enough - that is to say, much better than any previous days, but to any other person it would seem rather average - but now they had a night to face. Nights were always the more difficult times. Days had lights and other things to remind them that they were out of the pit. Nights gave them dark and hours of silence, where the memories pressed in around them. (It was the days that they ended up spending trying to shake off the night, even if their friends may never understand that.) 

Seeing the stars was both the best and the worst thing that they did, but they had done it every night without fail since they had returned from the pit. 

Silently pointing at constellations, tracing the sky with their fingers, hands almost made solely of bone. Grasping at each other for warmth in the cold night air. Tapping. Tapping. Fingers always tapping. Spelling constellation names in Morse code. Tapping. Writing their dreams without saying a word. Tapping. Soft, gentle touches. Tapping. (There was nothing soft in the pit, nothing gentle. Even their bodies had seemed harsh, spiny.) 

_ A curse.  _

_ Ghosts.  _

_ Birthdays.  _

_ Time passing. _

_ Sand made of glass.  _

_ Water, not just water.  _

_ Eyes in the dark, staring.  _

_ Pale, wispy memories.  _

_ Water, real, normal, water lapping at their feet.  _

_ Marking a gravestone.  _

_ Bob says hello. Hello, moon. Hello, stars. _

_ Falling, falling, falling.  _

_ A sword of bone, her fingers tracing the handle.  _

_ An ocean wave.  _

_ The boat beneath their feet.  _

_ Ghosts.  _

_ Their own ghosts. _

* * *

The day that they were to return to Hogwarts to begin the real reconstruction dawned bright. Harry his way down to the kitchen, careful not to wake Ron. The other boy had always slept longer than Harry, although recently he hadn’t always. The nightmares, he knew. He said nothing, but guilt bubbled up in him when he noticed Ron up before dawn. (Was it not his fault that his friends had suffered? It was done now, but that didn’t mean…) 

“Good morning, Molly.” 

She turned around, giving him a big smile and a scone. “Good morning, Harry!” The dark circles under her eyes had returned, but her cheery disposition remained. The bounce of her brilliant red hair had a wave of calm wash over him, chasing away his worries of putting the family in danger. The clock on the wall showed the safety of everyone in the family, even if some were lost. He let himself breathe in the scents of the morning. 

A few minutes later, Percy and Annabeth walked in the front door. Percy shuffled over to the table, nodding a greeting to Molly and to Harry. Annabeth leaned heavy on her cane, smiling softly and shaking her head when Percy pulled out a chair for her. 

“Good morning, dears. What do you usually have for breakfast?” 

Harry saw the two exchange a long look before Annabeth spoke up, her voice softer than he remembered it being the day before. “Just a piece of toast for each of us, thank you.” 

Molly shook her head, as if not believing what she was hearing. “Nonsense. You’ve got to eat more than that!” 

Percy’s response was to raise an eyebrow. Annabeth looked down at the table. 

“It’s no bother to cook up whatever,” Molly continued, seemingly oblivious to their reactions. “You are aware that we use magic in cooking here, right? Do you do that in the states? It doesn’t really matter, I suppose. So what would you like to eat?” 

A beam of sunlight shifted into Harry’s eyes. He winced, shifting himself so that he wasn’t looking into the sun. It suddenly struck him just how early it was, and the two guests had been outside? It was rather odd behavior, but he supposed they could have just been out to see the sunrise. He didn’t know enough about time zones to know what time it would be for them in the states. They must have just been jet lagged. 

“Thank you for your hospitality, but neither of us have eaten breakfast recently. A piece of toast each will be more than enough.” 

“I don’t know-” 

Luna entered the kitchen, eyes red as if she’d been crying. Percy opened his arms. “C’mere, Lulu.” His voice was rough, but she let herself come forward and be wrapped in a hug. 

Molly turned back to the stove, the idea of force feeding their guests all but gone as she clearly fought to keep from smothering Luna. And Harry didn’t ask why she had been crying, or even why Percy kept calling her Lulu. He would have, if he had been Hermione. (But he wasn’t, and she wasn’t here, and he just wanted to have a normal life for once.) 

* * *

“Hey Harry.” 

He looked up from where he was altering the size of stones in order to fit them where they were supposed to go. “Hi Luna.” 

“Do you ever think about who we’re supposed to be?” She said in her airy voice, and Harry was struck with just how beautiful she was. Her hair was practically golden, not just blonde. Her cheeks clung to the little bit of baby fat she had left, despite the weeks she’d gone without a suitable meal during the war. The war. Despite having just barely finished a war, Luna glowed. Maybe it was her personality, or maybe she was just that excited over seeing her sister again. 

“Sometimes, I suppose.” 

“You might find you’re not as you as you think you are.” And then she was gone, golden hair and radish earrings bouncing behind her as she skipped. 

* * *

“Your mother is Alice Gardner?” 

Neville nodded. “Well, her married name is Alice Longbottom, but yeah. That was her name before she married my dad.” 

“I knew you looked familiar!” Luna exclaimed. Hermione stared at her, incredulous. 

“You knew his mom? Isn’t she… you know…” 

“Insane and locked up in St. Mungos? Yes.” Neville snapped. He stabbed a potato with his fork, scowling at the tablecloth. Hermione had the audacity to blush. 

“Ouch.” Percy said, before muttering under his breath, “Well at least you didn’t invite a malicious entity to possess you and then go on a homicidal rampage when he did decide to possess you before eventually succumbing to the poison he planted in you in a moment of self awareness.”

“Wha…” 

Percy received a light smack on his shoulder from Annabeth. “Seaweed brain! How many times do I have to tell you it was because of a misguided lack of faith in his father, not because his mother went insane.” 

Hermione looked between the two of them. “Wha-who..?” 

“Ah, just a former friend of ours,” Percy shrugged. “Anyways, unless there’s a different Gardner family with an exceptional talent for plants and plant related magic in which the oldest sister went to England at age fifteen and never came back, we know your aunts. 

“That is incredibly specific.” Hermione remarked. 

“Considering my mom arrived in England at age fifteen and married into the Longbottom family for protection three months later, I’m assuming it’s the same Alice Gardner.” Neville smirked sadly. 

Percy put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay, most of us have a weird parentage story on at least one side. We’ll get you in contact with Miranda and Katie if you’d like as well, although since neither of them are that much older than you, it’ll probably be more like having sisters instead of aunts.” 

* * *

Harry sat in the evening light, the grass soft below him. It was fall now, the last of summer’s grip having long worn away. The sun hung low in the sky, and he knew it was time for it to slip behind the trees along the edge of the property. It was almost time for dinner, too, but he didn’t want to stop taking deep breaths of the cool autumn air. 

“Hey.” Ginny slipped in beside him - her red hair flowed easily down her back, though it wasn’t nearly as long as it had been before the war. 

“Hey.” He replied, and they let themselves fall quiet for a minute, took in the peace that lay, stretched out, before them. 

It was in a soft, almost timid voice that one of them (he will never be sure which one of them) asked, “What are we?” 

“Hm?” Replied the other. “Whatever we want, I suppose.” 

“I haven’t… any desire to move on, if you don’t. But after everything, I would understand completely if you…” 

“No, no…” 

Harry twisted his sleeve around his hand. “There has to be something more to that. It can’t just…” 

“It should be more complicated? There should be something else, holding us back?” Ginny guessed. She traced invisible shapes in the grass with her fingers. (Too long, too thin.) Her hair blew in the breeze. “It’s never going to be easy, that much I’ve learned.” 

“I don’t know much about letting people in,” Harry admitted. 

Ginny frowned a little, a small motion of her lips, a furrow of her brows. Still, she said nothing. They watched as, in front of them, Luna skipped across the field towards the grove of trees. Her blonde hair flew behind her, and Harry was again struck with how beautiful she was - not just in terms of her appearance, but something about her as a person. 

He forced himself to turn his eyes to Ginny, but it seemed he didn’t need to. A small smile graced her face, eyes following Luna as she skipped. “She’s so pretty,” Ginny breathed, and Harry almost laughed. (He would have, if he wasn’t so confused.)

“Can girls like girls?” 

She looked at him in surprise, “Well, yeah. Anyone can like anyone. Even if they don’t have a gender.” 

Harry squinted. “You can just… not have a gender? Just like that? No catch, nothing?” 

* * *

Ron woke up shaking. It was still dark, and a quick  _ Tempus  _ revealed that it was four in the morning. He could get up, though he’d have a few hours to himself. 

Careful not to wake Harry, who was still snoring in the bed beside him, he pulled on a sweater and a pair of jeans. The Burrow was surprisingly peaceful at night, no noise but the creaking of the house. Sometimes, he would be able to hear George and Ival murmuring about something, though he didn’t dare try to find out what it was. The creaking of the wood panels was comforting to Ron, though he knew some people would be scared. In the case that the paneling did collapse, magic would hold the house together long enough to last till morning. There was nowhere he felt more safe than home. 

Percy and Annabeth sat in the kitchen by the light of a single lamp. Ron almost turned around, but they smiled and he sort of liked the idea of company. So he found himself sipping tea with their two guests at four in the morning. 

A small sheet of… what was it, paper? A small sheet of paper lay on the table in front of Percy, where he was squinting at it and muttering something under his breath. 

“Do you need some help?” He asked before he could stop himself. 

Annabeth smiled, “He’s trying to read his mom’s cookie recipe. We thought we’d make some for your mom, she’s done so much for us. The thing is, he’s dyslexic and I’m awful at cooking.” 

Ron found himself laughing along with them, though he wasn’t sure if it was a real kind of laugh or something closer to laughing to keep afloat. “There’s a small possibility I can figure out how to work the oven if you’d like help.” 

“Would you?” Percy looked up, gratitude clear on his face. 

By the time Molly woke up and came downstairs to the kitchen, there was flour everywhere and Ron’s side ached from laughing. The cookies, he had to admit, were spectacular. (Blue food coloring and all.) 

Percy had been an incredible teacher. (“Here, Ron,” He said, taking Ron’s hand and guiding him to crack the egg on the countertop without splattering it. “Not too hard, but hard enough that you’re not just trying to make scrambled eggs before taking the shell off.”) Annabeth had sat there, head in a book, occasionally laughing when Percy flicked flour at her. 

And really, it was all worth the time he would inevitably spend cleaning up later to see his mom’s smile light up a room again. (This is what he wanted to do for the rest of his life.) 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we have our first trans character! Percy Weasley is nonbinary and goes by Ival in this. Harry uses the correct pronouns for them, but doesn't realize that it's because they "don't have a gender" according to Ginny, so is still shocked that it's a real and widely accepted thing.


	3. Professors, Ministers, and Other Careers (part one)

“Sometimes, I think this is all a dream,” Minerva breathed, her eyes trained on the restored castle, blinking carefully as if it might disappear if she closed her eyes. Each stone glimmered slightly as sunlight struck it, the residual magic still visible on the outer walls. 

Annabeth placed a hand on her shoulder, and the older woman smiled - a smile that held more than words ever could. “It’s as real as I am, Minerva. We did it.”

“When I left that world all those years ago, I never thought…” 

“You never thought you could be a part of both.” Percy’s voice was soft as it cut through the silence that had fallen over the trio standing alone on the castle grounds. “You never thought you’d be able to go back.” 

There were hundreds of things she wanted to say to the two demigods by her side that had come into her life so willingly and made the world an easier place to comprehend. To Annabeth, who had taken all the pressure off her when it came to rebuilding efforts and making Hogwarts better than it had been before. To Percy, who for all his lack of traditional intelligence, was more than she could ever hope for in terms of keeping her students on their feet after everything that they’d been through. To both of them, who managed to make a place for themselves in a new world, even when they were barely holding it together at the seams. She had hundreds of things she wanted to say, but what fell from her mouth was, “Stay?” 

* * *

Neville couldn’t help but be impressed by the changes to the Great Hall that had happened during reconstruction. Before he’d seen the overhaul, he’d been reluctant to return to Hogwarts - after everything, he had thought there would be too many painful memories in the castle to bear returning. But this… it was completely different, and while it wasn’t easy to return, he knew everything would be different in the coming year. This was a place where he could make new memories. 

“So what do you think this year is going to be like?” He ventured. 

Ron shot him a grin, grabbing a scoop of mashed potatoes. “You mean what kind of trouble are we going to get into this year now that there’s no maniacal tyrant trying to take over the school?” 

“I’m surprised you even know the term ‘maniacal tyrant,’ Ronald.” Hermione said, drawing a laugh from Harry. 

Ron swallowed a large forkful of potato. “I blame Annabeth.” 

“Professor Chase.” She corrected. 

“She’s teaching?” With a confirming nod from Hermione, Harry grinned. “If Ron’s cookies are anything to go by and she’s anywhere near as good as her boyfriend, we’re going to have a good DADA teacher this year.” 

“Defense? She’s teaching history. Her boyfriend is teaching DADA. Were you even paying attention to Professor McGonagall’s speech?” She said over Ron’s objections that his cooking wasn’t that bad before he got help. 

“Maybe at the beginning?” Harry admitted. 

Neville laughed a little, turning back to his dinner, but not without glancing up at the high table. Professor Jackson was engaged in a conversation with Professor McGonagall, gesturing with his hands as he explained something. She was fighting back a grin, enthralled with whatever he was saying, but Professor Chase didn’t seem too disturbed by it - instead whispering things in his ear, seemingly attempting to unsettle him. This year was going to be okay. 

* * *

“It’s not going to be easy.” 

“Whatever is?” Percy laughed, and Minerva resisted the urge to sigh with relief. 

“You know how to teach?” Was probably not the best question to ask after offering someone a job teaching at a magic boarding school, but it was what she said anyways. 

She was rewarded with a smile from Annabeth. “You said you have a defense class? Percy’s taught sword fighting classes before - he could do that for the older grades and learning the lower grade spells shouldn’t be too difficult. I’ve taught Greek and a number of other classes for year-round campers, so feel free to put me on anything that isn’t highly dependent on previous magic knowledge.” 

“Defense? I love you already. We’ve had an insanely difficult time filling the defense against the dark arts position, so if all I have to put up with is the upper levels learning sword fighting as the practical side of things, I’ll take it. If I had a quill and parchment, I’d sign you on this instant.” Minerva couldn’t resist her sigh of relief. The defense position was already proving challenging to fill, and this opportunity had just fallen into her lap. Maybe she really could do this Headmistress thing. 

“That bad? Sounds like finding schools for me to attend.” Percy joked, and she was acutely aware of how lucky she had been to find Hogwarts - a place to go to school and live out her life in relative safety from the monsters that surrounded mortal schools. 

She laughed. “Yeah, in the past seven years, our best teacher was a literal werewolf.” Percy whistled, and Annabeth grinned. “Maybe…” 

“Minerva?” Annabeth questioned.

She was well aware of the glint in her eyes when she turned towards the daughter of Athena. “Would you teach the history of magic class? We could revamp the curriculum, gods know it needs to be done regardless…” 

It was when Annabeth turned to her with a matching glint in her eyes that they all knew the wizarding world wasn’t going to be the same ever again. (She wondered if Hecate would regret introducing the daughter of Bellona and the daughter of Athena.)

* * *

If Neville was the first person to take Professor Jackson up on his offer of one-on-one discussions, no one dared mention it. He slipped into the defense professor’s office on the second day of term, armed with nothing but a blank parchment, quill, and ink. 

“Professor?” 

Professor Jackson looked up from his desk with a soft grin and a wave of his hand. “Take a seat. I’m assuming you’re not here to talk about the class material?” 

He shook his head with an apologetic smile, sliding into the bright blue armchair on the other side of the desk. 

“Don’t worry about it, that’s why I’m having these discussions. They’re for anything we don’t want to talk about in front of our classmates, whether that be grades, family circumstances, or simply extended discussions that your classmates don’t care too much about.” 

“Hermione would like the last one.” 

Professor Jackson laughed. “Well, she’s welcome to schedule a meeting. Now, enough about your friend, what did you come here to talk about?” 

Neville nibbled on a fingernail. “I… er…” 

“It’s okay, take your time.” 

“You knew my mother.” He stated simply, abruptly stilling and bringing his eyes up to meet Professor Jackson’s, as if searching for any malintent. 

A careful nod. “Not personally.” A searching look. “I am in close contact with her two full sisters, though.” 

“You’ve said.” 

“There’s Miranda, who knew her when she was younger. Miranda is a bit older than myself, just old enough to remember Alice before she left for England. Katie is around your age, so I don’t think she ever met Alice. But…” 

“But?” 

Professor Jackson studied Neville, standing up from behind the desk. “Have you ever tried sword fighting?” 

“Uh… I mean, do you count cutting off a snake’s head with a sword?” Neville muttered, trying to sink backwards into the cushion of the armchair. 

Professor Jackson stared at him, wide eyed. “You… Well! I suppose that makes it easier. I know Katie and Miranda both prefer daggers, but they’re sufficient at swordplay, so I assume that with a little practice you could easily surpass most of your classmates.” 

“What is going on? Why would I be good at swordplay? Why do Katie and Miranda use daggers?” 

“You were never informed.” It came out more like a statement than a question, so Neville suppressed his instinctive confused vocal response. “Well that makes it harder, but I’m not sure why I expected anything different.” 

“Erm…” 

(If Neville left Professor Jackson’s office with a letter to his two aunts and a new dagger tucked into his robes alongside enough confusion to last a lifetime, either no one noticed or they didn’t dare comment on it.)

* * *

“I don’t think I want to be an auror anymore.” Ron admitted to Harry one night over a game of chess when the common room was mostly empty. He hid his shaking hands in his laps as he directed his pieces around the board. 

Harry looked at him with a searching look, and for a minute, the fear of losing each other settled heavy in the air. But Harry simply pursed his lips and said, “I don’t know why I ever wanted to be an auror.” 

With that out of the way, the boys go back to their chess game. (Not that it lasts that much longer, Ron easily wins within a few minutes.) 

“Is there anything you want to do in particular?” Harry asked a few days later, bags heavy under his eyes. Ron’s heart clenched at the thought of his best friend suffering over not knowing what he wants to do with the rest of his life. 

“You can do whatever you want, you’re Harry.” He said smoothly, but it’s not enough, and with a pointed look, he admits, “I want to bake. I know it’s-” 

“It makes you happy?” 

Ron had never been so happy to have Harry as his best friend. “Yes. And… It’d be enough to keep me afloat in terms of… you know, money. You’ve seen how the wizarding world treated Fortesque.” 

Harry’s laugh filled the room. “Yeah, we really value our sweets, don’t we?” 

Ron joined him, promising under his breath that he would always accept Harry for who he was. It was the most liberating feeling Ron had ever imagined, and if he could make even one other person feel that, he would have done something worthwhile in his life. 

* * *

“Does it… Does it make me broken if I don’t like anyone?” 

Professor Jackson frowned at Neville, a gesture that would have made him doubt himself if he hadn’t known Professor Jackson’s expressions when he was confused. “You have plenty of friends.” 

Neville’s laugh was empty, almost more of a scoff than an actual laugh. “I don’t mean that, I know I have friends, and they’re great. I do like them. It’s just…”

The searching expression on Professor Jackson’s face was enough for Neville to remember that the professor was only a few years older than him, if that. He didn’t have all of the answers Neville was looking for, even if it seemed like it at times. The older boy knew enough that Neville looked up to him. A lot. But that didn’t make him flawless, and Neville berated himself for even beginning to think that. 

“I think my friends are enough. My gran wants me to get a girlfriend - I think she’d be happy with a boyfriend at this point, but I don’t want either. I mean… I’d be happy dating someone if they didn’t expect me to… y’know…” 

Professor Jackson figured it out, and Neville realized why Hermione said these muggle cartoon things used a lightbulb to symbolize an idea. His whole face brightened up, tension that Neville didn’t even realize he was holding disappeared. “Asexuality.” 

“What?” 

“Asexuality is the lack of sexual attraction to other people, regardless of gender.”   
“There’s a word for people like me? I’m not broken?” To his horror, Neville felt tears welling up in his eyes. Yet, he couldn’t help but repeat, “There’s really a word for people like me?” 

Professor Jackson smiled at him. “Of course there is. It might be new, but it’s there. You aren’t alone, and you’re certainly not broken.” 

* * *

Minerva knew that Luna Lovegood was a strange witch, but recent events had highlighted the fact that she had earned her Ravenclaw sorting. She shook her head. A daughter of Athena. She’d never even thought that she might not be the only demigod under the protection of Hogwarts. What kind of daughter of Bellona would be that unaware? Well, she supposed it was because she was the only Roman demigod that they knew of within Hogwarts. 

“‘Lo, Professor.” 

“Hello, Miss Lovegood.”

“I’m glad I found that you’re like me.” And her student was skipping off, blonde hair floating behind her. 

An idea coming to her as she watched the demigod rejoin her friends, she marked down on a piece of paper to have her students tested for ADHD and dyslexia - on that note, she might as well have each student undergo a full exam. She wasn’t going to fail her students, and more than ever they were all her students. 

Hogwarts was going to have the best support system of a magical institution on the European continent, past mistakes be damned. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that this chapter is so short and late, it was incredibly difficult to write during finals - and it certainly didn't help that this section kept tripping me up. I'm hoping write a bit ahead of my upload schedule this week, but we'll see how far I get. Either way, I should be more faithful to my once a week schedule over break. 
> 
> In other news, I'm 98% sure I'm misspelling Fortesque.


	4. Professors, Ministers, and Other Careers (part two)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the fifth time I’ve rewritten this section, and I’m still not fully satisfied with it. I hope y’all enjoy it nonetheless :)

“It’s lunchtime, is it not, Mr. Potter?” 

Harry watched as Professor Chase approached where he was sat on a large rock by the lake, the sun glittering through her hair in a way that reminded him that despite their stark differences, she was very much a sister of Luna’s. Professor Chase was a good teacher; compared to Binns, anyone would have been an improvement, but she was legitimately a good teacher. She reminded him of Professor McGonagall in her strict but kind mannerisms. Harry struggled to picture Luna thriving in the same way in a classroom setting. “Yeah,” he said simply, pulling his attention back to the current conversation. 

She sat down next to him carefully, leaning her cane against her rock. “So what are you doing out here? I doubt you’ve had time to eat between classes.” 

“Just thinking,” He shrugged, unable to bring himself to snap at her to go away, despite wanting to. They fell silent for a moment, the professor there yet somehow not intruding. Harry was struck by how much had changed in the years since he first found out he was a wizard - he’d learned to value moments that he would have discarded in an instant before. Noisy moments, quiet moments. Booming moments, and silent moments. The moments that changed everything and the moments that changed nothing. 

“About?” She asked softly, and Harry remembered a different Professor Chase. One from the summer, one who didn’t hold strict confidence in herself but a lightness in her actions, always looking to her boyfriend for the answer, embracing Luna like nothing else in the world mattered, being so irrevocably human that he could only see a teenager in front of him and not a professor, even though she held both so easily most of the time. 

He shrugged again. 

“I remember my first prophecy.” She stared out over the lake, twirling a piece of hair around her fingers, “Well, it wasn’t spoken to me, but it ended all the same...” 

“How old were you?”

”Twelve.” 

Harry remembered being twelve, unsure in who he would ever be, just trying to come to terms with being famous in a world he had never known until the year before, and all that being famous meant. “Being twelve isn’t all it’s cut out to be.” He said, and they both knew what the words were really saying. 

She smiled at him, a smile of empathy instead of sympathy, instead of pity. He wasn’t alone. Maybe this world would be okay. 

* * *

  
“What did you get on the transfiguration essay?” 

Luna bit back a giggle as she launched into a conversation about homework with Hermione. She knew that the other girl hadn’t liked her much in the past, although they had come to terms with their differences and found what they had in common. 

Hermione was a lot like Annabeth, she realized quickly. The investment in schoolwork was her version of intelligence, one that proved substantially more applicable in the real world compared to some of the things learned in muggle secondary school. She had a genuine interest in the things they were learning, as well as learning in general. Luna’s belief in creatures that seemingly weren’t there grated on her nerves because she wanted to believe in facts. She wanted to know that the facts she was learning were true, and the flighty nature of fringe magizoology went against that nature. All the same, Luna knew she had intelligence beyond what she typically portrayed, and once Hermione figured that out, they had become much closer friends. 

Friends. Luna smiled while Hermione talked, though she wasn’t fully listening. Having friends was a novel experience, one that she still couldn’t entirely wrap her head around. It made her smile grow. She had friends. 

* * *

“I didn’t think students were allowed on the grounds after curfew.” 

Ginny lifted her head slowly. She knew that the tears ran freely down her face at this point, and she wasn’t sure she could bring herself to care, no matter how pathetic it probably looked.“Professor Chase.”

Professor Chase gave a hum of acknowledgment, settling down on the ground beside her. They let the quiet, cool air wash over them. Ginny took in a shaky breath, as if to speak, but Professor Chase placed a hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay, take a minute.” 

“I’m no-I’m not sup-posed to be out here.” 

“I know,” She gave a small laugh. “I’m a teacher. If you’re with me, you’re okay. The rule is there to keep you safe, so that we know where you are if something goes wrong.” 

“Hm.” 

Even from up here on the grounds, she heard the soft waves hitting the rocks on the lake shore. Professor Chase let out a long breath from beside her. 

“I miss him.”

”Your brother?” 

“Yeah. It’s not like he’s gone to school here recently, but...” 

“It’s still hard.” Professor Chase looked over at her, a searching look on her face. Ginny resisted the instinct to bow her head. 

She nodded, unable to bring words to the tip of her tongue. Her vision blurred from the tears welling up in her eyes, and she found herself being pulled into a hug.

Professor Chase was surprisingly warm, considering the cool air around them and her relatively frail stature. Her hair smelled of lemonade, a faint memory of summer days at the Burrow. They pulled apart after a long moment, and Ginny found herself missing the comfort of being held by another person. The professor pulled herself up from the ground. “Let’s get inside.”

* * *

Luna found Neville in the greenhouses. She wasn’t surprised, she knew that he was a legacy of Demeter, and genuinely loved being around plants. He hummed as he watered the plants with a watering can. The plants in this greenhouse weren’t particularly dangerous, so he wasn’t wearing gloves. Most plants liked him anyways. 

“Oh, I didn’t see you there, Luna.” 

“It’s a nice morning.” 

“That it is,” He agreed, turning back to the fanged geraniums he was tending to. She peaked over his shoulder, eyes wide with curiosity. “They need a substantial amount of water, even in the winter if they’re inside, since they won’t be getting water from the rain, and we haven’t set up an irrigation system in the greenhouses since everything changes so often.” 

She grinned. “You’d make a good teacher.”

* * *

  
It didn’t take long for Ginny to realize that they weren’t going back to the Gryffindor common room. They wound through the halls surprisingly quickly, considering the cane Professor Chase relied on most of the time. The door that they stopped in front of was Professor Jackson’s office, but she just opened it and gestured the younger girl inside.

”Hey Perce.” 

He looked up from his desk, where he was squinting at some sheet of parchment, “I see you picked up a stray student.” 

She matched his grin, and mimed shoving him off his chair. They stifled their laughter and turned to Ginny, offering her a seat. She hesitantly took it, perching on the edge of the armchair usually used in student meetings. Professor Chase threw herself into another armchair off to the side of the desk. 

“I’m assuming you didn’t come for your career advice session, considering it’s almost one in the morning.” 

“No, uh...” Ginny glanced at Professor Chase. 

“I found her on the grounds and didn’t have the heart to force her back to her common room right away.” 

“You must be going soft,” Professor Jackson teased. “Well, now that you’re here we can either sit in silence, talk about the trauma, or do that career advice session.” 

“Erm... career advice?” 

“Okay, Weasley...” He paged through a stack of papers, before pulling out two folders. “I’m assuming you aren’t Ronald.” 

“That’s my brother.” 

He opened the folder, looked at the contents, and promptly slammed it shut. “I ain’t reading that if you’re sitting here and can tell me if you have any ideas of what you wanna do.” 

Professor Chase groaned in the background, “You can’t just... ugh.” 

Ginny giggled at the exchange, wiping her dance with the back of her hand. “I dunno, I don’t really like sitting at a desk all day.” 

“Me neither,” Professor Jackson agreed, prompting her to continue with her thought process. 

She looked around the office, eyes not meeting either of the professors’. In the morning, she would wonder why she had taken them up on the opportunity to do the career advising meeting in the middle of the night, but she wouldn’t regret it. Now, though, she dug through her memory of various career options that didn’t involve sitting at a desk all day. “I don’t think I want to be an auror, and I’m not really a big fan of care of magical creatures or herbology...” 

Professor Jackson picked up the folder again and glanced through it. “Your grades are pretty good, although not especially strong. There’s very little that’s been eliminated based on your current grades or owl results unless it’s a specialized field, so you get to go off of what you want to do.” 

“I think... I think if I could I’d want to play professional Quidditch, but...” 

“That’s a difficult career to rely on,” Professor Chase nodded. 

Her boyfriend looked thoughtful. “I think you could make it, though you’d have to play well enough in front of scouts in order to make it into the industry... a backup plan isn’t a bad idea, if you can’t get in right away or end up needing to retire early, since both of those are common with careers in sports.”

”Percy is right, but not playing doesn’t mean you have to avoid the industry. I’m not all that familiar with Quidditch, but in muggle sports, there are plenty of jobs that have you working parallel...” 

* * *

“I’m sure you can do anything you put your mind to, Hermione.” 

“Oh, Harry, I hope so. There’s just so much the wizarding world could do better. If I just had more backing on the free house elves movement...” 

He nodded, letting her talk through her ideas. He thought about how much had changed since his first year, since they became friends. To think it was all because of the mountain troll, the one that wouldn’t have been in the school if not for Voldemort possessing his defense against the dark arts teacher. He shook his head before catching himself and trying to hide the motion. (Hermione still noticed.) 

“Harry?” 

“Er... sorry. Just thinking about us becoming friends.” 

She looked at him, head leaned on one of her hands, “It has been over seven years, hasn’t it?” 

His head bobbed up and down, maybe a bit too enthusiastically. “It’s hard to imagine now that I didn’t like you in the beginning.” 

“It is rather strange,” She mused. 

She really could do pretty much anything she put her mind to. He was incredibly lucky to have her as one of his best friends. He could just imagine her behind the minister’s desk, organizing the government beyond recognition... “You should try for Minister of Magic.” 

Now, not much shocked Hermione at this point in her life, but this gave her pause. “Pardon?”

”You should run for Minister of Magic,” Harry repeated, more sure of himself. “I mean... not right now, but sometime. Soon. Like when we’re done with school.” 

“That’s... crazy. Crazy but brilliant!” She grinned, throwing her arms around him. (He couldn’t have asked for better friends.) 

* * *

  
Ginny found Harry by the lake, even though the grounds were covered in snow. He had spent a lot of time there, relishing in the quiet it provided away from the noise of the school. She found herself there too, more often than she cared to admit.

”Hey.” 

“Bit cold today, innit?” She asked, hesitantly extending her hand to rest on his shoulder. 

“I suppose.” His words matched his eyes - distant, glancing out over the lake to something she could not see. “Why’d you come?” He asked, though sounding more like a statement than a genuine question. 

“I wanted to make sure you were okay.” 

“I’m okay.” 

She scoffed, kicking up a bit of snow with her boot. “Then why’re you out here?”

”Thinking,” He shrugged. “It’s too loud inside.” 

“It’s not that noisy,” She pointed out, and it was true. The castle was positively silent compared to the years before the war. There were no snowball fights on the grounds, no yelling, or out of tune holiday songs being blasted. It wasn’t sad, per se, just different. Quieter. 

“Hm.” 

They fell silent again, and though Ginny felt the cold press down around her, she did not move. “What’s that muggle saying, like... money for your mind?” 

He laughed a little, drawing his eyes from the horizon. “You mean ‘penny for your thoughts,’ the one that Hermione scoffs at every time I bring it up?” 

“Yeah,” She giggled, breath creating a cloud in the air. “That one.” 

“Hm.” He met her eyes with his, and she let herself breathe in sharply. She loved his eyes. “You like Luna.” 

She recoiled. “Of course I do! She’s my best friend, Harry.” 

“But that’s not all, is it?”

She looked out over the lake. “I... I don’t know.” 

When he finally replied, his voice was soft. “What if...” She searched his face, but only saw uncertainty. “What if I felt the same?” 

“It...” She traced a finger along his face with a light smile that he soon matched. “It would make things easier, I think. Or maybe harder, but mostly easier.” 

* * *

“Is it strange that I miss the D.A.? Like I know it was awful that we had to make it, that having that woman was one of the worst things that happened in the school, and we shouldn’t have snuck around to do it, but...” 

Luna searched Harry with a knowing look, the way she was prone to. It was one of things that made her the Luna that he liked. “You miss teaching, don’t you?” 

He sighed. “Well, yeah... I suppose I do.” 

She smiled at him, brilliant and genuine. He couldn’t help but return the grin. 

“I just felt so... me, y’know? No one was expecting me to be anyone else, or trying to make me better in some way..”

”You’d make a good professor. You and Neville.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Hanukkah to everyone who celebrates :)
> 
> My laptop is broken, so I’m currently writing from my tablet. This is more difficult, but if you’re reading this chapter, it’s doable. Please be patient with my irregular updates, I’m trying my best with the cards I’ve been dealt in life right now.


	5. Professors, Ministers, and Other Careers (part three)

Hermione never considered herself the kind of person that needed support. She was - and had always been - a fiercely independent person. Her parents were largely the hands-off type, letting her do what she wanted to do as long as it was safe, and she found herself doing things at younger ages than her peers. 

When her Hogwarts letter arrived, shortly before her eleventh birthday, her parents had turned to her for the decisions. Neither of them had even said a word the entire time Professor McGonagall was there, despite her impressive feats of magic. 

That visit (similarly, she would later find out, to Harry’s experience) set the tone for the rest of her life in the Wizarding world and what little she had beyond it.

But now... well, the last year hadn’t been easy. When they were younger, it had been simple enough to treat the year’s dangerous events like a game, like something that wasn’t really putting their lives at risk. Hermione had grown up with the idea that authority was right all the time because she couldn’t imagine anyone pretending to know something they didn’t. It took years for her to unravel that idea from where she had intertwined it with her personality. 

The last year had pushed everything she’d known to the edge. She had been forced to do things she knew were wrong, forced to fight for her life, forced to pretend she wasn’t on her verge of starvation, forced to keep herself going when all she wanted to do was give up.

She’d wished for a childhood she never knew she had.

* * *

Ron knew, objectively, that Harry didn’t like the fame he’d been forced into. He’d known that practically since the day he met his best friends - even if he hadn’t acknowledged it at first. Or even in the first four years of their friendship. Because as much as Ron knew of Harry’s dislike for fame, he hadn’t understood why. Why would someone give up the attention they had? Ron always had to fight for attention. (He didn’t realize that Harry had given up on getting attention years before they met until much later.) 

He could safely say he understood after the war.

It wasn’t that he was particularly famous - as usual, Harry took the bulk of the fame for the defeat of the maniacal tyrant, if purely by accident. No, he wasn’t famous, although he was credited in some interviews and news articles. He understood why Harry didn’t like the fame because he had lived through most of what Harry had, and it was not something he wanted to be famous for.

He also saw how the press and the public treated Harry. It wasn’t pretty or glamorous in the least. They swarmed him, regarded him as something other than human, put him on a pedestal he didn’t want to be on, and blamed him for problems he in no way caused.

(It had always been that way, Ron had been purposely blind to it when he was younger and idolized the idea of fame solely for the attention he imagined it would bring him. He hadn’t realized that attention wasn’t inherently good.) 

The events that he had allowed himself to be at the center of had been fun at first. Games, almost, silly little things he understood as comparable to the trouble his brothers got into. At eleven, he hadn’t understood the danger he was in, had put himself in. At twelve, he had only wanted to do the best for his family and himself. At thirteen, he didn’t want to believe that the world would do anything to hurt him. At fourteen, he had thought the tournament was no more than a game with a prize. At fifteen, he had thought of doing nothing more than the best to protect the things he loved. At sixteen, he had been so caught up in everything that was goin on that he didn’t stop to think about what was actually happening. By the time he was seventeen, he was terrified, yet more determined than ever to do what he knew was right.

At eighteen, all he could breathe was relief that it was done.

* * *

“You know you can claim your Wizenmegot seat now that you’re over seventeen, right? I mean I get it if you’re doing something politically that means you can’t, but...” 

Harry looked at Neville, frowning. “Wizenmegot seat?”

”You...” Neville gaped, “You don’t know about the Wizenmegot?”

”I mean... of course I do! Erm, what was that again? Like I know it’s important, but no one ever told me...”

Neville shook his head. “Merlin, Potter. Who was even supposed to be in charge of your lordship education. Even I know what the Wizenmegot is, and I’m in the greenhouses more often than not.” 

“Erm, I dunno.”

“Okay, so here’s what we’re going to do...”

* * *

  
“Professor Jackson?”

He looked up from his desk, having sat down shortly after class finished for the day, “Yes, Mr. Weasley?”

”I... uh, Ijustwantedtothankyou.”

Professor Jackson smiled, a soft upturn of his lips, a small crinkling in the corners of his eyes. “Breathe, Mr. Weasley. I’m not in a hurry.” 

Ron’s cheeks burned, and he looked down at his shoes, “‘M sorry, P’fessor.”

”It’s alright. Would you like to make an appointment for a one-on-one?”

”Nuh. I just... just wanted to thank you. I, uh, I wanna be a baker, or like a sweets chef. You taught me how to bake and I wanna say thank you, ‘cause I’d never thought I’d like somethin like that until I tried it.”

Professor Jackson’s smile grew. “You’re more than welcome, Mr. Weasley. I can mark you down for career advising?” 

“I did my advising with Professor McGonagall. M’ brother offered me a job through ‘is joke shop, ‘long as I help with the register and stuff,” Ron mumbled. 

“Well, I’m glad to hear that. I hope you’ve had a good year so far.”

* * *

“Miss Granger.”

”Hello, Professor Chase.”

The Professor sat herself down at Hermione’s preferred library table without asking for permission, but she found herself not caring. The professor wasn’t one to make unnecessary conversation most of the time, although she was nearly as friendly as her boyfriend outside of class. 

“May I ask what you’re working on? I know it’s not anything from my class,” Professor Chase grinned fleetingly at the thought.

Hermione glanced up for a second, making sure she was talking to the right person. “It’s not much,” She shrugged, her hair falling into her face, “just a couple rough plans for as I move up in the ministry, at least hopefully.” 

“Can’t always count on people giving you what you want.” Professor Chase agreed. “You’re incredibly organized.” 

“I have to be,” She shrugged again, feeling a bit like a bobble head figurine. 

Professor Chase’s hand landed on her shoulder, and she forced herself to meet the professor’s eyes. “You don’t have to prove yourself to everyone.”

”It’s what people want me to do.”

”Is it what you want to do?”

She nodded. “I guess... I’ve always worked hard. I’m smart because I put the effort in, and I can’t imagine not pushing myself. Being in the public eye isn’t my preference, but I’m going to do what I need to in order to achieve my goals.”

”You’re ambitious.” 

“Incredibly.” 

Professor Chase smiled. It was hardly life-changing in the way one would expect, but something in it made her pause. There was genuine pride in Professor Chase’s eyes. Hermione knew she had someone else behind her in her goals, and she felt herself swell with the idea that she really could do whatever she put her mind to. She would be the first muggleborn minister, blood purists be damned.

* * *

It was April before Minerva allowed herself to breathe. Running the school was more than she had thought it would be, even though she had taken a large portion of the work as deputy. She understood quite clearly why all previous headmasters and headmistresses had chosen to take it on as their only position, but she was not previous headmistresses. She was Minerva McGonagall, daughter of Bellona. 

If she was honest, it hadn’t been her intention to take on both positions - despite her best efforts, there were simply no qualified transfiguration professors willing to teach directly after the wizarding war. Additionally, there was no one she trusted with the headmistress position. She was by far the most qualified, although she didn’t want to sound egotistical by opening he position and then denying candidates in favor of keeping the position the same. She had, after all, been deputy headmistress for over thirty years under Professor Dumbledore. 

During his life, she had deeply respected the older man, and followed him gladly in both political circles and professional ones. Now, almost two years after his death, she had come to view him as innately human. 

She knew that she had been right to respect him for his mind, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t flawed. Because he was flawed, and it might have taken cleaning up after him to understand that, but she had gotten it. His mind was not always focused on the small impacts his decisions made, like many wizards who took a strong stance in politics. Further, his financial management left much to be desired. (It’s not that he was taking it for his own gain - she couldn’t imagine him doing that - but he had never been all that skilled in working with numbers, and that transferred over to his financial decisions with Hogwarts.) 

It had taken her a number of months to sort out everything required to run a school beyond the basics, and by that time, it was almost time to organize the respects for the Battle of Hogwarts. 

But Minerva was not alone, and she could use her position to change the wizarding world for the better. She didn’t suppose she’d be a daughter of Bellona if the prospect didn’t excite her.

* * *

  
Harry had never wanted his fame. He’d been forced into it at eleven, when he had entered the wizarding world and discovered that people hailed him as the defeated of some dark wizard. He hadn’t understood it then.

He’d grown up wanted to avoid the spotlight, because he knew the spotlight gave him nothing but trouble. Then, he was given attention all the time for something he didn’t even remember doing. He had been a baby, after all. He didn’t think he’d consciously done anything. And it had lost him his parents. So why did they think he was their savior? Their chosen one? Their hero? 

Yet, without someone to advocate for him, to shove off the advance of rumors and expectations, to let him know how he was supposed to act, he had been shoved into the role anyways. Because there was nothing else an eleven year old boy could do. (He didn’t trust the adults then, would only start to at eighteen when he was one.) 

Fame had only proved to cause trouble for him as the years went on, like he knew it would (albeit subconsciously) at eleven. When he was twelve, people were quick to believe that he had gone dark in the face of a tiny bit of evidence that could be considered dark - ignoring the fact that he didn’t know it was dark and had not been using his abilities in a dark way. Besides, he knew now that dark did not equate to evil like he had thought at twelve. When he was thirteen, he’d been expected to keep himself safe from an escaped criminal, despite not knowing who the criminal was or what he had done. When he was fourteen, he had been forced to compete in a tournament made for older students. A tournament designed to kill him. When he was fifteen, his fame had turned on him by way of everyone claiming he was lying, insane, trying to trick them. When he was sixteen, his fame made him nothing but a target for forces who wanted him dead. At seventeen, he knew it was kill or be killed. 

All of that brought him to now. To eighteen. To knowing that he needed to take control of his fame. To knowing that he had to do something, no matter how much he wanted to do nothing. (And maybe in a different world, he would be able to disregard his fame and move on with his life, but he’d learned enough from his teachers and his friends to know that change didn’t come easily. The wizarding world would need to work to get to the new equilibrium they needed, and who else but he would be at the center?)

He still didn’t like it. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t willing to use it to get the world to a place where he could fade into the shadows and let someone else take the spotlight.

* * *

  
Neville had never been considered confident. He’d been a shy child, and had grown into a reserved adult. Or he would have, without a war tearing his world apart. 

Fifteen year old Neville had joined the DA out of a sense of duty. He needed to show Harry that he supported him, needed to show himself that he could be brave like his father, needed to show his grandmother that he could be more than a child. The outside world didn’t matter to fifteen year old Neville, not in the way that it mattered to some kids. He was content with himself most of the time, as much as he wished he could be more like his father.

By the time he was sixteen and learning what war really meant, he knew he had to step up. Reserved Neville wasn’t enough. His brain had always been good a problem solving, even though he was rather anxious. He liked finding creative solutions. Wizards didn’t like creative solutions, though, and he had quickly retreated into himself. But at sixteen, with war on the horizon, creative solutions were valued by his peers.

He became a leader. Shy, reserved Neville was the perfect one for the job. He had the determination, the creativity, and the soft caring side that let him take care of the students who wanted out of the dictatorship that Snape held on the school. 

Finding his family after the war had been a shock, but there were a lot of things that suddenly made sense. The plants. The sword swinging in his hands naturally. The way he felt as at home on the battlefield as he did in the greenhouses. (And his sexuality. He wasn’t alone.)

At eighteen, Neville could be considered confident.

* * *

  
“Hey Neville, what did you get on that herbology essay? I think I mixed up the harvesting techniques for those two plants, they just look so similar to me...”

He shook his head slightly. The idea that he had real friends, instead of standing off to the side and observing was something he still had trouble wrapping his head around sometimes. “Hermione, Hermione, breathe. You got an E on that essay, you’re fine.” 

“But I have to get good grades if I’m going to get a ministry position!” Her frizzy hair bounced as she turned her head towards him abruptly, eyes wide.

He fought the urge to chuckle, “An E is a good grade.” She looked at him incredulously. He sighed, “I’ll show you the difference. But it’s still a good grade.”  
  


* * *

  
It wasn’t often that Ron sat away from the group, but there were some days when he needed the quiet of the grounds rather than the chaos of the Great Hall. On one of those such days, he sat by the edge of the forest, his transfiguration textbook open on his lap. He stared over it at the earth in front of him, earth where someone had likely taken their last breaths. 

A voice pulled him from his thoughts. “Ron.” 

“Neville,” he replied, looking up only briefly to see who it was, before staring back down at the earth below him.

He felt the other boy sit near him, heard the birds chirping overhead. He wondered how many of them were owls, and how many of those were carrying letters. He hoped they were good news, the world needed more of it. 

“You know you don’t have to keep everything to yourself, right? We’re all here for each other, and that includes you.” 

“Yeah.” 

Maybe they sat in silence after that, all that needed to be said having been laid on the table. Maybe they didn’t confide in each other the pain that they felt in that moment and the ones before it, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t enough. They hadn’t always been friends in a supportive sense, although they were now. The silence, the quiet was enough for both of them to draw support and strength from the world around them. 

* * *

Ginny had never considered herself a weak person, never considered herself anything but the strongest of girls, and later, women. She’d grown up with six brothers, who treated her like another one of them even when her mom didn’t. She’d grown up under the support of six boys who viewed her as nothing but feisty. 

She grew into her strength with all the drive of a hungry dragon. She didn’t slow down or make way for anyone. She was herself, fully and unapologetically. 

Then she had been possessed. 

On the outside, it didn’t change much. Being apart of a big family, one of the first things she learned how to do was push the blame onto someone or something else. The second thing she learned how to do was hide, slip under the radar. So, on the outside, nothing changed but her growing into being a girl. (Ignoring the fact that she was always a girl, albeit a less feminine and sensitive one.) 

For her, though, not a day went by where she didn’t think about what had happened. She swore to herself that she would be stronger, that she wouldn’t let anything like that happen to her again. She was the strongest of girls, of women. 

(If she was seventeen before she believed that again, well, no one had to know.)

* * *

  
Luna was eight years old when her stepmom died. She didn’t see it happen, but she could have. Could have if she hadn’t been in America with her half-siblings, with the other children of Athena. Could have, if she wasn’t learning how to fight for her life. 

When she started Hogwarts at eleven, she could see the Thestrals because she had watched monsters kill demigods on the hill. Because she had fought and killed. Her peers wouldn’t know battle for another four years. 

She held her secret close to her heart - let others think she was crazy, that she wasn’t smart enough to be in Ravenclaw, however much it hurt. (No one knew how she gave Greek monsters silly names in an effort to keep them away from her. No one knew that she snuck off, not to find creatures, but to practice her swordfighting so she could protect herself if she needed to. No one needed to know.) 

Her friends now - and wasn’t that excellent to say, her friends - deserved to know. They had fought against an enemy, had fought for her even when she didn’t know that they would. They knew her sister now. Without telling them, well, how could she know which world was more like home? She was sick of keeping secrets too, didn’t know how she could lie to them for the rest of her life. 

Neville, too, was a legacy. And Professor McGonagall, of all people, was a demigod like her. If her worlds weren’t interconnected, her friends were. They all deserved to have the backup, have the family that she had found at Camp. They all deserved so much more than the wizarding world could give them.   
  


* * *

“Mr. Weasley. Miss Granger. Please stay back a minute.” 

“Professor McGonagall?”

”You didn’t do anything wrong, I just need to talk to you two about graduation. As the top of your class, Miss Granger, you automatically are on the list to make a speech during the ceremony. Generally, these last only a few minutes, and I would implore you to keep it short and simple.”

”P’fessor?” 

“Indeed, Mr. Weasley. I also would like you to make a short speech, one on behalf of your, ah, fallen classmates.”

”But... wouldn’t Harry be a better choice?”

”Do you believe Mr. Potter would like to make more than one speech? No, I already asked him to deliver a different speech. In fact, the majority of your class is speaking in some sense or another.”

”Wouldn’t that be repetitive, Professor?”

”You all have different experiences and personalities, do you not, Mr. Weasley, Miss Granger?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And just the epilogue left! I’ll have it posted tomorrow at the latest.


	6. A Graduation Speech

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And this is the epilogue! Because apparently I can’t avoid writing long last chapters, even when I call them epilogues. Enjoy :)

“I taught the parents of these students. I watched the parents of these students walk through the doors of the front hall, nervous about the decision that was about to get made for them. I watched the parents of these students get sorted into their houses, worried that they wouldn’t be accepted by their parents or by their peers, maybe ashamed or excited based on where they had been sorted. I watched the parents of these students find their way through their classes, choosing their favorite and least favorite subjects and teachers. I watched the parents of these students make friends and enemies. I watched the parents of these students fight for what they believed in, die for what they believed in.” 

“I told myself never again.” 

“Then, I taught these students. I watched them walk through the doors of the front hall, nervous about the decision that was about to get made for them. I watched these students get sorted into their houses, worried that they wouldn’t be accepted by their parents or by their peers, maybe ashamed or excited based on where they had been sorted. I watched these students find their way through classes, choosing their favorite and least favorite classes and teachers. I watched these students make friends and enemies.” 

“I watched these students fight for what they believed in, and die for what they believed in.” 

“Years ago, I stood in this very spot and told the students in front of me, some of the parents of the students who sit in front of me now. I told them that they had been through the most that I had remembered a graduating class go through. I told them while the worst was yet to come, they had come this far. I told them to trust in themselves and their abilities, that it wasn’t a mistake that they would receive a diploma from the institution of Hogwarts. I told them that if they could get through the years behind them, they would get through the years ahead of them.” 

“I was wrong. Not only did an unprecedented number of them die in the years following graduation, something I’m sure I don’t need to tell you, but they did not go through the most a graduating class of Hogwarts would or even had. At the time, that title went to the class in which three students were involved in the opening of the Chamber of Secrets: the one who opened the chamber, the one that was expelled because of the opening of the chamber, and the student who was killed as a result of the open chamber.”

”Now, though, it goes to you.” 

“Half of this year’s graduating class was supposed to have graduated last year, yet the class is no larger than average. Your class started small, and ended smaller. Each year, there was another outside force interfering with your education. Every year, there was another issue that found its way into the school. And I get to stand in front of you and claim that, to the best of my knowledge, the worst is behind you. Behind us.”

”You made it. Today is for celebrating your accomplishments, and this class has no shortage of them. You make up the future of the wizarding world, and I have great faith that our future is a bright one.”

* * *

  
  
“At the end of my first year, I was given ten points for, and I quote ‘standing up to my friends.’ As an eleven year old, those ten points meant the world to me. They were given at the closing feast, and brought Gryffindor house to first place in the house cup.” 

“I had never been good at magic in the traditional sense, and my years at Hogwarts didn’t change that much. Sure, I grew as a wizard, and my magic with that, but it’s not the same. I will never be as strong magically as my friends and peers. At eleven, that was humiliating. I was shy, I tried to go without being noticed. The ten points were both the best and worst thing to happen to me.” 

“Now, I can clearly see that those ten points were meant as a statement, one I’m not sure I agree with. Professor Dumbledore awarded me those ten points as a way of showing the rest of the school that Gryffindor house was the best. As much as I would like that to be true, I would rather prove it through subtler and more honest means. The ten points, too, set me aside from my friends that had received many more for their accomplishments. Not helpful for my self-esteem.” 

“But all of that is beside the point. I have grown from the boy I was at eleven. The circumstances that I was handed in life were not the ones I wanted, but they rarely are.”

”I found myself and my magic in herbology. I found my way in being a leader, a teacher.”

”What was supposed to be my seventh year was nothing but a disaster, but I stepped up. I could see that I was the most qualified in the room to lead the resistance. So I did. And though I doubted myself in the beginning, found myself hoping for a more experienced leader and fighter to take over, it was my place and nothing but my place. The younger kids deserved someone standing behind them, like I wished had been there for me when I was younger. No one but me would step up.”

”It didn’t make me a better wizard. It didn’t make my magic stronger. It didn’t change the way my strengths lay. What changed was my mindset - I allowed myself to accept that my strength would never be on the front lines, would never be offense. But I’m strong in my own right. I can use logic and creativity. I can use the magic I do have to change the world.”

”Herbology saved my life many times over. I am proud to accept the herbology department award, and I hope to prove to others that it’s not a subject to toss away because the magic isn’t inherently obvious.”

* * *

“The charms department - why do we call it a department? We all know it’s just Professor Flitwick and a mirror - tried to get me to duel my girlfriend for the charms department award. Unfortunately, before that could happen, she was offered a different department award. What can I say? I know how to pick partners. And do charms.” 

“I probably should have gone for the care of magical creatures award, but hey. I’m a Ravenclaw.” 

“While I do enjoy it, charms has always been more of a necessity for me. You see, I was eight when the first monster tried to kill me. They can’t find me in magical areas, but I need to be able to disguise myself when I go into the muggle world, even briefly.”

”I can tell that you all find that shocking. While I can’t fully explain in a way I’m sure many of you would appreciate, and certainly not in this short speech, there are a few things I can explain. My mother is not Pandora Lovegood, nor is she dead. I have several half-siblings, both muggle and otherwise, although mostly otherwise. It is because of my biological mother that these monsters track me. If you know both of your parents, can read English easily, and are over fifteen, there’s no way you’re in danger.”

”What’s important about that to understand when it comes to my relationship with charms is that there was a time I resented her for me having to learn charms in order to keep myself safe. There was a time I resented her for not being brave enough to tell her enemies not to kill her children. There was a time I resented her for not being loyal enough to her family. There was a time I resented her for not being cunning enough to avoid making enemies. There was a time I resented her for not being wise enough to understand what I wanted from her.”

”I learned charms because of and in spite of her. I became who I wanted to be, rejected the idea of traditional intelligence to separate myself from her, as feeble as that now seems. I learned magic and I learned to thrive and told myself it was to get revenge.” 

“I can no longer resent her. But I can still do the charms I taught myself, and I survived to adulthood. Both of those are accomplishments enough for me.”   
  


* * *

“I never thought of myself as the best flier. I’ve never been the one with the shiny trophies for quidditch, but I’ve always been competitive. It’s one of my driving forces. I came to the realization just a few months ago that there’s nothing I’d rather do that immerse myself in the competition that quidditch brings to the wizarding world.” 

“I’m surrounded by friends who want to change the world.”

”Honestly, I just don’t want to do that. It’s not that I think the world is perfect, far from it, but it’s enough for me. I’m happy to cheer my friends from the political sidelines.”

”As most of you know, I grew up with six older brothers. I don’t think anyone is wondering why I’m competitive now. Quidditch, too, was something that we couldn’t get enough of. I’m pretty sure my mum just wanted us out of the house during the day, but even using older brooms got us a thrill. Not that I played with them before Hogwarts, but even watching them, I managed to pick up a lot of the game and technique.”

”I taught myself how to fly in secret, by sneaking brooms from the shed into the field. It was my secret, my hidden weapon. I couldn’t wait to see the look on their faces when I outflew them all when I finally played.” 

“It was worth it.” 

“That moment should have been the turning point in showing me what I wanted to do for the rest of my life, but sometimes you have to take the long road in getting to what you should have known earlier.” 

“But flying isn’t just about quidditch, and I think the wizarding world sometimes forgets that. I try not to, as much as I love the game. Which, if you haven’t gathered, it a lot. Flying though, is something else. It’s useful, it’s graceful, and it’s a skill comparable to muggles and their bicycles. Most people know how to ride one, even if they choose not to. And just like bicycles, brooms are a form of transportation.”

”I hate to be that girl, but yeah, I’m pretty great at flying. It’s not just the quaffle.” 

“It hasn't been the easiest journey for any of us to get here, but even the rockiest of rides can turn out good in the end. So here I am, after one rocky ride of seven years, accepting the flying department award. Thank you.”

* * *

“I am fairly confident that I was the only one who ever doubted my ability to graduate at the top of my class. Even the people who hated me never called me anything less than intelligent, didn’t dare insult my mind. Every barb came at the expense of my blood.” 

“Isn’t that wild? Eight years ago, I entered the wizarding world, scared out of my mind that I would be tossed aside just because of the color of my skin. Muggles disregarded me because I looked different, insulted me because my skin was darker than they thought it should be. Muggles saw my hair as something for show, something of an object rather than a part of myself. I was aware of all of that at eleven, though no pale child would be. I had memorized that as though it was a mantra by the time I was eleven.”

”Then I was thrust into the wizarding world, where my skin didn’t matter. My hair was glossed over. And it’s not that I saw more of myself, I just wasn’t seen as lesser because of the appearance of my skin and my hair, my culture and ethnicity.”

“I was thrust into the wizarding world, where I was seen as lesser, not based on the color of my skin, but because of the blood running through my veins. So at eleven, I was ready to fight back. Ready to use my intelligence to show them that I could be worth as much as them. Whether they were muggles or wizards, I was determined to find a place for myself. If there wasn’t one, I was prepared to make one.”

”It was the wizarding world, ultimately, that showed me that I belonged. Not because I was worth anymore to the world as a whole, but because there were people willing to fight for me and with me. I had friends for the first time in my life. I had a family that I could trust.”

”I only hope that graduating top of my class shows kids like me that it’s possible to find a place in this world, even though I don’t plan to stop with this achievement. I can do more, so I will.” 

* * *

“Today is about celebrating for us, but that doesn’t make it right to forget about the ones who didn’t make it here, whether they were our peers, our friends, or our family. Every single one of them had an effect on us.” 

“As much as we wish they could be with us today, I choose to believe that they wouldn’t want us to be sad for them in a way that overwhelms the joy and relief that today means for most of us.” 

“My older brother, Fred, is one of those people. In life he was nothing if not a jokester, a prankster. He never finished school at Hogwarts, but managed to succeed in his own right anyways. As much as I miss his face in the crowd in front of me, he wouldn’t want me to dwell on the pain.” 

“Another one of those people is Lavender Brown, a girl who was supposed to graduate alongside us today.”

”I’ve never been great at these kinds of speeches, but I don’t think a big fancy speech with a complete list of names of what any of us want right now. So, I’m going to suggest that we take a minute.” 

“Remember your Fred, whether they’re one person or several. Breathe for a moment, and just tell them ‘hello’ in your mind. Acknowledge the effect that they had on you to get to this point, today. And then give yourself permission to move on.” 

“We’ve all grown, and we’ve lost, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t gain some too.”

* * *

“And I get to call that sap my best friend.” 

“Hello. I’m sure you’re all tired of speeches by now, and just want us to get on with the ceremony so we can all have pudding and then go home, wherever your home is now. However, I have the honor of introducing our defense against the dark arts and history of magic professors.” 

“They agreed to help Hogwarts get back on our feet after the issues that were the previous year, although no one is really sure why, we’re grateful.” 

“Over the past eight years, we’ve had minimal luck with defense against the dark arts professors. When the first one was possessed by the dark lord, the second one was a fraud, the third one was good at teaching but turned out to be a werewolf, the fourth one was a follower of said dark lord imitating the auror that was supposed to be our professor, the fifth one was a ministry lackey that hated children and the concept of defense, our sixth one hated three fourths of the school, and, well, none of us stuck around long enough to see what the seventh one was like. When you take all that into account, the guy who teaches sword fighting and real defensive magic is pretty awesome.”

”I’d like to think he’d be pretty awesome anyways, but I can’t really say for sure.” 

“Now, we didn’t have as bad of a history with our history of magic teacher, but he was a literal ghost. It was about time he got fired.”

”While we all understood that they were temporary professors, they’ve been an enormous help in teaching is not just what their subjects entailed but also how to cope with life and being a teenager when you’ve never been allowed to be one. They taught us about ourselves, but on our own terms.” 

“They gave us the space we needed, taught us how to advocate for ourselves in a non-aggressive way, taught us that asking for help isn’t bad. They were the first teachers to pull us aside and show us what it meant to be a teacher, to show us what it meant to be a student and a teenager.”

“This day may be about us, but it’s also about what got us here. And that includes our favorite teachers.With that all being said, Professors Jackson and Chase!”

* * *

”And now I have to live up to that introduction, which is going to be difficult to accomplish in a five minute speech.” 

“I’ve been through a different set of trials from the students in front of me, but that doesn’t mean we’re different. It’s cliche, but I swear I’ve learned as much from my students as they have from me.” 

“I was in a difficult place when I first came to the wizarding world in Britain. I wasn’t allowing myself to be myself, wasn’t allowing myself to move on from the past. Being a teacher was never something I imagined for myself, considering I was an incredibly awful student and generally disliked school.”

”But being a teacher was a new challenge, and I’ve always been the kind of person to raise to a challenge.” 

“Although I don’t believe I would have made if I’d tried to be a conventional professor, success was the only option in my books. I thought about what I needed as a student that I had never gotten and tried my best to deliver.” 

“Although I was apprehensive to start this new experience, like I’m sure many of you were when you started school or even when you first walked into my class, now that it’s come time to say goodbye, I don’t want to.” 

“I want to see each and every one of you succeed, and while it’s difficult to leave, I can rest easy knowing I’ve made an impact worth saving.”

* * *

“My life’s goal has always been to build something permanent. When I was younger, that meant a monument, it meant a building that people generations after my family line died out would see.” 

“Now, it means so much more.” 

“It means building permanence in my own life, in terms of family and friends that I can count on in the dark times and in the light.”

”It means building permanence in other people, in terms of lessons and ideas that follow you in a positive way, that shape who you want to be.” 

“It means building permanence in embracing change, because when it comes it can be recorded and allow everyone to have something permanent to rely on.” 

“So before I return to building something permanent in terms of architecture, I want to thank each and every one of you for allowing me to find and build something permanent beyond myself and my buildings. Thank you for being my something permanent.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, y’all! It’s been a fun time. Happy New Year :D 
> 
> Please check out my profile for a current schedule for uploading and upcoming stories, I try to keep it updated even when I’m not on an upload schedule for any of my stories. 
> 
> At the moment, I don’t have a plan for any continuing content in this universe.


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